Of course still playing Dark Souls just about every day for at least an hour. Instead of doing a third run with my main guy, I'm continuing along with a GUTS character build, focusing on strength and one-hit kills. So far, pretty impressive build. Main weapon is the Manserpent Greatsword, upgraded to +15 with around 40 str at level 60. Thing does insane damage. And when two-handed + great magic weapon, with Power Within activated... Guts would be so proud.

Yeah, I need to get back into Dark Souls at some point. I started over with a Mage-build but got sidetracked by other games, such as Demon's Souls, which I'm yet to complete. Only Old King Allant to go now! First time around he handed my ass to me on a silver plate, whilst draining my Soul Level for the hell of it, and I've been putting the rematch off ever since!

Been playing Shin Megami Tensei IV for 3DS. About 10 hours in. Enjoying it, but not in love. The game really explodes with content around the 8 hour mark, and it's getting more exciting, but the characters and plot are just so interminably dry, it's hard for me to sink my teeth into. It's actually the same thing that kept me from loving Fire Emblem Awakening on 3DS...

Did you make sure to get your 30$ nintendo e-shop credit?

I recently finished SMT IV and i just started up Fire Emblem and my god i have to force myself to play this game. The story, world, characters, just everything is so generic and dull. I agree that SMT IV can be dry but it can't be as boring as Fire Emblem's world. It sucks because i really wanna like this game. The gameplay is enjoyable and i like the whole mechanic of: if you mess up and someone dies, they're gone forever so every move is important. I just wish i could care about the characters in my army, but i dont. lol Does the story or characters get any better.. at all? I'm only like 3 hours in.

i just started up Fire Emblem and my god i have to force myself to play this game. The story, world, characters, just everything is so generic and dull.

Yep.

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I agree that SMT IV can be dry but it can't be as boring as Fire Emblem's world.

SMT's world is much more interesting of course. But I've so far found every single character boring and unrelateable. Whereas Fire Emblem has the opposite problem.

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The gameplay is enjoyable and i like the whole mechanic of: if you mess up and someone dies, they're gone forever so every move is important. I just wish i could care about the characters in my army, but i dont. lol Does the story or characters get any better.. at all? I'm only like 3 hours in.

The story gets WORSE if you can believe it, because it doesn't really do anything. Just plods along at a predictable pace. The one plot twist there is you will see a mile away. The characters were enjoyable throughout, to me ,and are the highlight of the game. If you're playing on normal, even the gameplay will become boring because it gets too easy at around the 2/3 mark. Once your characters are leveled enough, battles become more a chore than an intellectual challenge.

Fire Emblem is probably the game I've been the most disappointed by this year. My favorite S-RPGs are Final Fantasy Tactics and Front Mission. These are old, old games but clearly inspired in some way by earlier Fire Emblem games. Fast forward 15-20 years, Fire Emblem is LESS engaging than the things it influenced.

The system is cripplingly simple. You will master it in a few hours, and it's about a 35-40 hour game. That's poor design. This game also made me realize how important story is to me. I don't have too much time to spare on games these days, so it's really vital to me that the story is worth my time.

I've been playing a few games lately. I finished Epic Mickey 2 on co-op which was ok but pretty short and disappointing. I'm also playing Dynasty Warriors 8 which got surprisingly really good reviews and even being almost the same game for the 7th time now this last one is probably the best. A few new features mixed with a few old ones, its a very entertaining game to play.

I also started Splinter Cell: Blacklist which is really good so far. Seems like they took a page out of the Mass Effect book the way you travel around in your aircraft and talk to your teammates and accept missions etc. Much smaller in scale but the same basic idea (way more in depth upgrading though). I'm not too far but its without a doubt more stealth based than the last game and the amount of challenges and and upgrading you can do is actually pretty daunting. I'm really enjoying it though. Classic Splinter Cell.

Now i need to get Rayman Legends. Another game that got some amazingly positive reviews.

I recently finished Game Dev Tycoon. It's simplistic, but can be amusing for a few hours. You develop games with a designated genre+theme+audience+size combo and then allocate what percentage of time you want to spend on aspects like dialogue/gameplay/world design/etc... at each of the designated stages of development.

The game design process bears pretty much no resemblance to news stories of game development. Projects don't go over budget and the time it takes to make a game is pretty predictable. All of your games generate revenue for a very short period of time; there is no option for ongoing MMO operations, nor is keeping up with competition much of a struggle. There is no option for DLC, expansion packs, microtransactions. You don't even control the price of a game, when/where it goes on sale.

Don't expect the depth of a Civilization, or even a sims game. After you get a big enough hit and make so much you wouldn't even know how to spend it, what little tension/difficulty there was in this game evaporates.

All in all, it's about a tier above a freemium facebook game. Working your way from poverty and obscurity to obscene wealth and fame the game fun for a couple of hours, but completely forgettable afterwards.

My recommendation: wait for it to hit $1.

There are so many games I'm waiting to get once the price comes down far enough: Gone Home, Outlast, Far Cry 3, and Heart of the Swarm.

Just got Amnesia A machine for Pigs ,intense so far ,same as Outlast ,but damn that cam view on Outlast works damn well. Kotaku had an interesting review with nope moments for Amnesia http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/09/amnesia-a-machine-for-pigs-the-kotaku-review/These are probably last games I will slowly play until Tuesday when I get my copy of GTA V ,after that oh boy , in breaks from GTA V ,I will probably continue Dark Souls

I beat Crisis Core last night. Aside from having way too many extra missions (300 is overkill, in my opinion), it was a lot of fun and really well made. Next up: Final Fantasy VIII, which I stopped replaying a few years ago when I got into Mass Effect.

Replaying Dragon Age: Origins. I saw some new stuff from Inquisition that really got me on the bandwagon again. Can't wait for fall of 2014, but until then my warden and hawke will have to keep my company.

Also if anyone here is really familiar with dark souls it'd be great if you could message me some tips for early on. I stopped playing for a bit since i'm stuck and it irks me cause i feel like a quitter. I have to beat that game!!!

Also if anyone here is really familiar with dark souls it'd be great if you could message me some tips for early on. I stopped playing for a bit since i'm stuck and it irks me cause i feel like a quitter. I have to beat that game!!!

Rocking FF V on android atm. Also VI is heading for mobile devices this winter. I haven't played much GBA games since when I had it I mostly played Pokemon games and then it broke and I won't even mention snes, so I'm looking forward to all classics SE is putting out(those prices though) .

Rocking FF V on android atm. Also VI is heading for mobile devices this winter. I haven't played much GBA games since when I had it I mostly played Pokemon games and then it broke and I won't even mention snes, so I'm looking forward to all classics SE is putting out(those prices though) .

I can't speak for the other games, but FFV (on iOS) is really well done.

You're joking right?

(click)

The art is an abomination. Looks like they took the original assets and ran them through an RPG Maker filter for extra soullessness. That's not even mentioning how they fucked the tileset on this meteor, and of course likely hundreds of other assets.

If you have a DS Lite, the GBA versions of FFV and VI are pretty darn good, if you don't mind slightly lower-quality music tracks. But these mobile games... Let's just forget they exist, okay?

3D versions like FF III and IV are pretty good. I tried to clear that image about rpg maker like sprites out of my mind since I started that game ,but seeing that meteor close up ,damn you se ,I couldn't really notice that on my 4'' screen. Since you mentioned DS Lite ,does it have emulators or something? Since I was aiming for DS XL. Aww ,jeez sorry for offtopic.

You got me! Me saying, "I can't speak for the other games, but FFV (on iOS) is really well done," obviously is my attempt at joking. I'm sorry that I mistook your inquiry about my comedic brilliance for you being condescending.

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To be clear, you just called the OTHER version of the game lazy and sloppy.

Yes. The problems I have had with the GBA addition is due to the generally sloppy/choppy battle animation and the long loading times between battles and the start screen, but more so the latter. Obviously others enjoyed the game, I didn't.

You got me! Me saying, "I can't speak for the other games, but FFV (on iOS) is really well done," obviously is my attempt at joking. I'm sorry that I mistook your inquiry about my comedic brilliance for you being condescending.

Ah, metacritic. Ever the arbiter of quality: "Generally favorable reviews based on 4 Critics" The foremost of which is a site called "Slide to Play"

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Or you're just a snob for the original FF aesthetics.

Here's how Square-Enix has handled previous 2D Final Fantasy remakes while retaining the spirit of the original designs, and how they handled FFV on iOS. You be the judge.

Reminds me a lot of this, actually:

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Anyways, I bought this game to play on my phone while I was out, so this is as far as I am willing continue this argument.

Yes, it is technically a portable Final Fantasy V. Just with hilariously muddled character designs. My biggest beef with this is that this is the largest stage these classic games have ever received, and they're going out the door in their undies.

So... I'm still playing Diablo III, how about that!? No really, I'm rushing my new hardcore character to Inferno before they close the auction house and I can no longer hand pick ridiculously advantageous defensive items. Currently level 47 in Hell difficulty. I look forward to my final meeting with Azmodan in Inferno. I know where I went wrong before (the power of his Meteor attack scales up ridiculously at long range, and I think I was hit by some lag because I never saw it coming). Next time I will have my vengeance! Also, my regular guy is pretty elite now and can farm MP10 Inferno easily.

So... I'm still playing Diablo III, how about that!? No really, I'm rushing my new hardcore character to Inferno before they close the auction house and I can no longer hand pick ridiculously advantageous defensive items. Currently level 47 in Hell difficulty. I look forward to my final meeting with Azmodan in Inferno. I know where I went wrong before (the power of his Meteor attack scales up ridiculously at long range, and I think I was hit by some lag because I never saw it coming). Next time I will have my vengeance! Also, my regular guy is pretty elite now and can farm MP10 Inferno easily.

I actually had the hankering to play this again the other day, just not with a Barb. Maybe a Demon Hunter or Monk. If the expansion gets good feedback, and the auction house removal does indeed restore some of that old magic, I'll return.